False economy

He appointed Lord Haskins, the then head of Northern Foods and a successful East Yorkshire farmer, to become his rural adviser and oversee the Government's recovery programme.

Yet there is little prospect of Gordon Brown undertaking a similarly effective response – even though the Government's own rural watchdog now claims that the recession has caused greater damage to rural communities than the foot-and-mouth epidemic that paralysed farmers, and left much of rural Britain closed to business.

Unlike Hilary Benn, the longstanding Environment Secretary who has attempted to stand up for agriculture's best interests, despite having to contend, for example, with the serial failings of the Rural Payments Agency, Mr Brown has little interest in rural matters – presumably because there are insufficient Labour votes in the "shires".

His antipathy is misplaced. Tourism and the wider rural economy are now an intrinsic part of the national economy. They sustain tens of thousands of jobs each year. But, even in the recession, there is still vast unfilled potential created, largely, by the Government's failure to come up with sufficient policies to empower enterprising rural firms – and a raft of misguided tax policies,

such as the penalty which is now levied against holiday home owners.

When other sectors of the economy have suffered a sharp slump, like the motoring industry, Mr Brown has sought to ride to their rescue with special initiatives like the car scrappage scheme. Why, therefore, does he continue to ignore the countryside's plight?